About Time
by Seishin No Hime
Summary: Noel likes Serah, Serah likes Noel... Trouble is everybody seems to know know about it but each other! Highschool AU, light-hearted. LightningxCaius, FangxSnow, HopexVanille and of course NoelxSerah!


**Cupid's** **Game**

My first Final Fantasy fanfic! I've been a fan of the games for as long as I can remember now, my parents were fans so I was basically brought up on it :) I think FFXIII-2 has to be one of my very favourite of the Final Fantasy games and NoelxSerah has been my OTP since I first saw them together. So after finally completing the game for a 3rd time, I actually decided to try my hand at writing a fic for it.

**Standard** **Disclaimers** **Apply**.

Noel Kreiss was on a mission. The Valentines day dance was coming up and he'd be damned if he didn't manage to ask her this time. By her, he was referring to the lovely vision of pink that was the younger of the Farron sisters, Serah, the girl whom had refused to leave his mind since the day that she and her sister Claire had trasferred to Pallumpolum highschool last year.

There was just one problem with his ingenious plan to draw her affections, and that problem went by the name of Snow Villiers. Snow was a senior, a year older than him and the star of the basketball team. Everybody at the school knew who Snow was and unfortunately for him, it seemed as though Serah had taken a particular liking to the popular jock. Not that Snow seemed to really notice her existance much, but he aften caught her watching him or whispering with her friends -Oerba Dia Vanille and Hope Esthiem- and gesturing in his direction.

FFXIII-2

Serah had liked Noel since she first layed eyes on him. She remembered passing him on the way out of the principles office on the first day that she and Claire had arrived and when she held the door open for them, she had already decided that he was the one for her. There were two things that stopped her from confessing to him as soon as possible.

The first promlem was that it was almost impossible to find him alone. Whenever she saw Noel, he seemed to be accompanied by a small first year girl names Yeul and because she wasn't wasn't sure about what their relationship was, she wasn't confident enough to try and make a move.

The second problem was, well it was more like two problems roled into one. Snow Villiers and Caius Ballad. Snow was a childhood friend whom neither she or Claire had seen since he moved away from Bodhum when they were much younger and much to her distaste, it seemed as though he hadn't changed at all. Foolishly, she had decided to confide in Snow about her crush a few months ago and he hadn't stopped teasing her about it since. Whenever she and Noel were even in the same room Snow would make overly exaggerated gestures to suggest her feelings, such as winking really obviously in her direction then staring at Noel.

Caius Ballad was a friend of Noel's, he also happened to be her sisters boyfriend and Snow's best friend and it seemed that this automatically made him privvy to her feelings for Noel it seemed. Though he was much less obvious about it, Caius too teased her about her crush and his teasing was almost worse because Serah was aware that he could tell Noel about her feelings at any time. This though often kept her up at night and she had once sat him down to try and have a very serious conversation with him to forbid him from telling Noel anything that she hadn't yet told him. That had fallen through when he had simply patted her on te head while chuckly and telling her that she nothing to worry about.

She often worried that people would get the wrong idea if they saw her hanging around with Snow and Caius at school, but then she told herself that she had nothing to worry about because everyone knew that Caius was dating her sister and that Snow had recently gotten engaged to Oerba Yun Fang.

Little did she know that Caius had gotten a very thorough interrogation from Noel the first time he'd noticed them hanging around together and had to stop himself from laughing several times as he explained that he was dating the older of the Farron sisters and that Serah was nothing more than a very adorable, if not slightly clumsy younger sister, much like he considered Yeul.

FFXIII-2

Yeul was laughing at him again. For some reason that he couldn't comprehend, she found his lack of proficiency in the romance department to be a source of personal amusement. It was luch time and he had purposely sat himself close to where Serah and her friends were talking animatedly. He was keeping a close eye out for Snow and sure enough, not 5 minutes after he'd arrived' the senior sauntered over to Serah and gave her an exaggerated wink. Quickly drawing his eyes to the younger Farron sister he was displeased to see her cheeks glowing red as she tried to hide her face behind her hands.

Meanwhile, while Noel was too busy watching Serah to pay attention to his surroundings, Yeul had turned her gaze towards Snow and found him to be staring directly at them. Meeting his eyes, she turned her exasperated look on Noel and then turned back to see the senior trying -and failing- to hold back a laugh. So her suspicions had been correct then, if she was reading his look correctly -and Yeul was rarely wrong, a talent some say- then the younger Farron felt for Noel, the exact way that he felt for her.

Really, the two of them were hopeless. How was is possible to both be completely and utterly in love with each other and not realise the others feelings? She'd heard the saying that love is blind but really, she didn't expect the emotion to obscure their vision this much.

Turning again, she saw that Snow was now beckoning her in his direction. With the realisation that Noel was unlikely to snap out of it any time soon, Yeul hopped to her feet and made her way over to the tall senior. He was fast to pull her out of sight of both of their friends so that they could talk without being interrupted and when they were firmly out of sight behind a grove of trees, they were joined by Claire Farron and Caius Ballad. Waiting just a moment, they were sooned joined by Hope, Vanille and Fang as well.

Snow spoke first, "Okay, I think we all know what this discussion is about. As funny as it is to watch those two dance around each other, it's getting kind of sad and I think that need a small nudge in the right direction because they don't seem to be getting the hints." There was a unanimous nod and mutter of agreement as everybody achknowledged what Snow was saying.

"If I'm correct then it seems that Noel is under the impression that Serah is in love with you Snow. He gets awfully jealous every time he sees the two of you interacting and I'm pretty sure he's unaware of you engagement to Fang." By the time time that Yeul had finsihed speakng, Snow was laughing loudly while Claire gave a small amused smile and Caius chuckled.

This time it was Caius that spoke, "little Farron has expressed her dissassisfation about you hanging around with Noel actually Yeul, she's refuses to approach him because she thinks that there's something going on between the two of you."

This time everybody in the group was hard-pressed to contain their laughter. It was just two funny, too much of a coincidence. How had the two of them managed to put of asking the other out because they rationalised that the other other already had somebody that they liked.

Claire spoke next, "I think that maybe if we just give them a bit of time together, without us around then they may just be able to figure out their feelings witout our help. If they just spoke to each other then these misunderstandings wouldn't happen. I say we stay here and see if one of them will approach the other." It was a logicial idea and the they agreed to wait for the next ten minutes and see what happened.

FFXIII-2

Her friends were no longer sitting with her and Yeul and Snow seemed to have mysteriously dissapeared as well, but Noel was hard-pressed to care as he realised that Serah was finally alone and that this may be his only chance to finally get his feelings across. If it turned out that their was somthing going on between her and Snow then he would graciously concede defeat.

Making his way over to her table, Noel took the seat that had previoulsy been occupied by Hope and coughed to get her attention. Her shoulders stiffened and she jumped slightly before she turned and met his eyes, her own eyes widening when she realised just whim had taken a seat beside her,

"Listen Serah... I don't quite know how to say this but I'm just going to go ahead with it anyway. I've liked you for a long time and even if you have a crush on Villiers, I just wanted you to know." He'd spoken quickly, trying to get the words out faster so that he would be able to hear her answer but now he wished he'd taken a little longer to try and correctly artiulate his feelings.

Serah's was about ninety percent sure that she was in shock. If her ear were not mistaken then she was pretty sure that Noel Kreiss had just confessed that he had feelings for her. Eyes wide, she gaped at him for a minute before finally smiling shyly at him. If this was a dream then she didn't want to wake up."You mean to say that you're not dating Paddra Nsu-Yeul?" Serah regretted the words then moment that they were out of her mouth, but she also desparetly wanted to know the answer, she had to know if he was being serious in his confession or not. Still, it was probably the wrong thing to say when the guy she liked had finally confessed that he had feelings for her.

"Me and... Me and Yeul!? You thought that me and Yeul were together? She's like my younger sister. No, have absolutely no romantic feelings for Yeul but tell me, does this mean that you don't like Snow Villiers?" his tone of voice when he spoke of the possibility of a relationship between himself and Yeul was comically disgusted and Serah found herself to be relieved and amused that he though that she was interested in Snow.

"I've know Snow since I was 4, we lived in the same neighbourhood as kids and he's like a goofy older brother to me. Didn't you know? Him and Fang got engaged at the beginning of the semester." Her voice was light and amused and Noel found that her giddy excitement was contagious.

She grinned up and him happily, " I like you to Noel, have since you first held that door open for me outside the principles office. If you'd like, we could go to the Valentines day dance together?"

He slung an arm over her shoulders and grined right back at her, "I'd really like that."

FFXIII-2

"It's about time, and who'd have thought that they'd get their act together if we just gave them a little alone time?" It was Fang that finally spoke after watching their two friends finally confess their affections for one another.

"Now everybody's got a date for the dance. Calire's going with Caius, Snow's going with Fang, Yeul's going with Maqui and I'm going with Vanille." Hope said

The friends shared one last laugh togeter before leaving their cover and returning to join Noel and Serah. Everything worked out in the end.

-**The** **End**-

So that's the end of my first final Fantasy oneshot. I hope everybody who read it enjoyed it! :)

I wonder, If I were to write a HopexSerah fanfiction would anybody read it? I tried looking for this pairing on the archive and found about one story that actually portrayed them as having a romantic relationship'

Don't forget to leave me a review to let me know what you though, things you liked, things that could have been better or just general comments!

**Sei** **x**


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